It's Not Paranoia
by ShadowBakaSama
Summary: if they really are out to get you. The Dursleys hid Harry for 10 years in 'the cupboard under the stairs' and now it's time to go to Hogwarts. Can he survive? Can he learn how to deal with people who may or may not want to kill him?


Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, but I'm not trying to make any money off this so I guess it's OK then.

This is a Harry Potter altered universe fanfiction.

It's not Paranoia

(if they really are out to get you.)

By Paul Bennett a.k.a. Shadowbakasama

_Halloween, 1981_ _- Godric's Hollow_

'The rat has betrayed us.' James thought as he felt the Anti-Apparation Wards go up. 'I hope he didn't find out about the other surprises.' as he remembered that Peter had been around a lot lately.

"Lily! Get Harry and get out if you can!" he yelled, causing her to jump up and grab her wand and emergency kit and run upstairs to the nursery as he went to the windows to look out to the yard. "I don't see anyone outside! How about on your side?"

Lily Potter looked out the upstairs windows to the backyard and saw that it was empty and tried the window only to find it sealed with a locking charm. "No one out back, but the window is sealed!" she yelled down to her husband.

"Try blowing out the wall or up through the roof!" James returned as he threw some powder into the fireplace only to see the green flames flash back into the room instead of up the chimney. "They've got a Floo Jammer up! I'll check the tunnel!"

Lily was upstairs bouncing spells off the windows and walls as she tried to get out and came to a disturbing conclusion. "Bloody Hell! James, that piece of shit Wormtail has locked us out of our own wards! He's sealed us into our own house! It'll take time to break this down!"

Downstairs James was feeling his world coming down around his ears as he looked into the Foeglass and saw Lord Voldemort himself coming up their supposedly secret escape tunnel. "Sorry babe, we don't have any time left! The Dark Lord is coming up through my tunnel! That damned Peter must have told him all our tricks! I'll buy you as much time as I can!"

As her husband prepared to trade his life to give her a few extra minutes Lily knew it wasn't enough time to unravel what the traitor had done to the wards that were supposed to protect them and so she started a desperate gambit that might save her son. She drank a Pain Relief potion from her bag and then transfigured a quill into a large hypodermic needle and stabbed herself in the heart with it, filling the tube with her life blood for a ritual that would land her in Azkaban, except for the fact that it would kill her.

Harry lay stunned is his crib as she tattooed Aztec runes into his chest as she chanted "With the heart's blood of the mother I call upon Tezcatlipoca to protect my son from the fate of his birth." As she heard James fighting downstairs she continued her ritual. "With the offering of my life in mock combat, I dedicate my death to Tezcatlipoca for the protection of my blood." With this she laid aside her wand and took up the toy wand that lay in Harry's crib.

Lord Voldemort was coming up the stairs, hurting and upset from his fight with James Potter, 'Potter put up a good fight, it's good I didn't try the front door like I wanted. Wormtail was right, it was trapped enough to kill Merlin himself if he stepped through uninvited. Now to kill the baby and take girl to Snape.'

Voldemort was ready for almost anything as he blew open the door to the nursery, but not for the sight of Lily Potter facing him with a wand, with her blouse open and a river of blood flowing and spurting from a wound on the left side of her chest. "Step aside, I'm only here for the boy." he offered her.

Lily was pale and cold from blood loss, but she still managed to stand and face her enemy and reply in a grave voice. "It's too late for me, but you'll have my son over my dead body."

Seeing that she was already bleeding to death he gestured with his wand and incanted "Avada Kedavra." firing a green jet from his wand to end her life before she could manage to raise her own wand.

Stepping over her dead body towards a bloody crib he saw his true target for this raid, Harry James Potter, born July 31 1980, and doomed by a prophecy to oppose him. Not being the sentimental type he just pointed his wand at the baby and cast "Avada Kedavra." again.

The green jet of light was met by what appeared to be a smoking mirror in front of the baby's face, the mirror of black glass absorbed most of the green light and then shattered towards Voldemort, the wave of sharp obsidian ripping apart his body, causing his body to boil away into a black wraith that fled into the night.

_November 1, 1981 - Little Whinging_

While the Wizarding World partied all day and into the next night over the death of 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named', a young orphan of the war was dropped of on the doorstep of his last living relative's house like a bag of flaming shit in the game of Ding Dong Ditch.

When Petunia Dursley opened the door to see a baby, bundled in a blanket with a letter on top, she would have rather had said flaming bag of shit, because this meant her sister Lily and her husband James Potter were dead. Now the duty fell to her and her family to hide and protect little Harry Potter until his godfather Sirius Black or his godmother Alice Longbottom came for him. Looking around to see if anyone was looking, she came out and snatched up the baby and went back inside.

Going back to the living room she saw her husband looking at her from his recliner and starting to get up.

"Well Vernon, it looks like 'Plan A' was a loser. Can you get _'the cupboard under the stairs' _ready for our nephew Harry." she said to him. They had already stocked the warded bomb-shelter under the house with supplies for the Potter family to hide out if necessary. Now it looked like only one of them would be using it.

"Of course Pet. I wonder how he lived through Plan A though, when Lily and James didn't?" Vernon asked as he gathered up some of Dudley's extra PJs and bedclothes to take down into '_the cupboard under the stairs_' which is what they named the bomb shelter and the only way they ever talked about, just in case.

"I'll have to start taking in the old squib's old papers to find out. I'll tell her that I take them in for recycling to get extra money for Dudley." She knew she could pull one over on the crazy cat lady down the block.

"Great idea Pet, with Plan B in effect we have to cut all contact with _them_, and can't let anyone know that Harry is here. It's a good thing Harry is younger than Dudley, he can wear hand-me-downs, since we can't take him shopping."

_-------------------------_

Years passed with Harry living in '_the cupboard under the stairs_', hardly ever seeing the light of day. They learned from old Daily Prophets that the Longbottoms were tortured into insanity and that Sirius Black was sent to prison for murdering Peter Petegrew and 12 bystanders, but Sirius never told anyone the secret he kept about '_the cupboard under the stairs_'. And since Sirius kept that secret the Dursleys couldn't tell anyone where Harry Potter lived, even if they wanted to.

When Dudley went to school he always lost a complete set of school books so that Harry could use them and Harry was made to work ahead and correct Dudley's homework. Petunia used her library card for many books that she never read, and bought many books and toys that Dudley never used, but never threw away.

Over the first few years they saw several oddly dressed people watching the house, and in the papers they recycled they kept finding a 10,000 galleon reward for information on Harry Potter. Several private detectives had tried to find Harry Potter, but he never turned up at any orphanages, schools, hospitals, or police stations and the Dursleys when questioned said that Harry didn't live with them at #4 Privet Drive and couldn't say where he did.

So it was the Dursleys hated and feared magic for good reason and didn't let Harry practice and punished him for any accidental magic for fear the Ministry of Magic could find them. They had read about many Death Eaters being pardoned and now being high in wizarding society and close to the Minister of Magic himself.

When Harry's Hogwarts letter came addressed to #4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, '_the cupboard under the stairs_' it was the only address they'd ever had for Harry Potter, and even then it took them 3 days of failing to address a letter to him to get that. That's because that was as far as Harry was allowed into the house, lest he be seen by someone looking in, none of the windows could see into the center of the house enough to see it, so Harry could come up in the evening and have their left-overs for dinner. It was just luck really that Professor McGonagall was stubborn and cast the addressing charm just when Harry came up to get his dinner before going back down, a 5 minute window of opportunity. When she showed Albus Dumbledore and he tried the charm and when she tried again they both failed, and so they sent the only letter they had and hoped it got through.

"You don't really think their keeping Harry Potter in a cupboard under the stairs do you?" Minerva asked her boss, worry in her voice.

"No, I don't think that. If that were the case them this charm should work even now. They must have him somewhere unplottable, but he was in the cupboard for some reason when you cast the charm that one time, and then he went back to whatever unplottable place they have for him." The Headmaster replied. "But where does he go? There are no missing houses in that area. Hold on." He got up and collected several silver doohickies and thingamagigs from a shelf and studies them. "Strange, the Blood Wards are still in place at #4 Privet Drive?! But Harry hasn't been seen there since we dropped him off there 10 years ago!"

"They must have an unplottable secret room in the house. That's the only thing that makes sense." McGonagall reasoned out.

"Not possible." Albus rebuffed her. "Death Eaters have gone through that entire house before and found nothing."

"What!?" Minerva exclaimed in shock.

"We only let them look because we had already been through there and knew there was nothing to find, it got them to relax the stake-out on that house. Maybe they have a portal of some sort? I don't know." Dumbledore reasoned.

Two days later they had their reply letter asking for Professor McGonagall to come to #4 Privet Drive as secretly as possible the next day and to Apparate to Diagon Alley with Harry to get his supplies. It would be their responsibility to provide adequate and trustworthy bodyguards for Harry during his shopping trip.

"Don't you think that this request for 'adequate and trustworthy bodyguards' is a bit over the top?" The Headmaster asked his Deputy.

"Not at all Albus, they kept him hidden for 10 years. Merlin knows what will happen when he's seen in Diagon Alley?" McGonagall replied. "For instance, Mr Malfoy still has that 10,000 galleon reward listed for information leading to Harry Potter. If we work it right we can walk right in to Gringott's with Harry Potter and walk right on out with him and 10,000 in gold to outfit him in style, courtesy of Mr Malfoy."

Albus smiled at the idea swindling one of the old Death Eaters out of so much gold and with his eyes twinkling like mad he said. "An excellent idea, Minerva. I think I can get in touch with a few old friends to join us shopping tomorrow. I know for a fact that Alastor would never forgive me if I didn't let him meet 'The-Boy-Who-Lived-In-Hiding' after he's spent so long looking for him."

"You better include Remus Lupin as well, he's been mad with worry since that night. Andromeda Tonks and Augusta Longbottom as well." Minerva added to the list. "We might even include Madame Bones to have a Ministry official on the spot that we can trust."

"Yes, that's brilliant. I figure Andromeda will bring Ted and young Nymphadora, Augusta will bring Neville and maybe Algernon, and Amelia could bring little Susan and two or three Aurors. That should be enough to discourage any trouble."


End file.
